Aborted faculty merger a win for organising collectively.

Te Hautū Kahurangi | Tertiary Education Union members at Waipapa Taumata Rau | The University of Auckland are celebrating last week’s announcement that management have “paused” the unpopular proposed merger of the Law and Business faculties.

The victory came in the wake of a highly effective campaign led by staff, who were deeply concerned that the merger would undermine the Faculty of Law’s independence, damage its international reputation, and be out of step with international practice.

The Faculty of Law Staff submission on the proposal stated: “Combining Law into the Faculty of Business and Economics generates a significant risk that the commercial and business interests in that Faculty will have an outsized role in influencing the direction of legal programmes and degrees, hiring practices, student initiatives and research priorities of the Law Faculty.”

TEU Branch President Brent Burmester says the university’s backdown is "a real collective effort that has paid off. Well done to all the members who coordinated submissions, lobbied for the 'against' vote in Senate, connected with concerned people and orgs outside the direct University community, and helped with the public facing TEU response."